


worth a moment's tenderness

by intimatopia



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Burnish Biology, Drinking & Talking, First Kiss, Gentleness, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mad Burnish (Promare), Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved, implied polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23198656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimatopia/pseuds/intimatopia
Summary: Lio is Burnish through and through, voices in his head and mad fire in his hands and all that blazing love - Meis wants to reach inside that mind and turn it off, make Lio breathe for a second. Gueira agrees, thankfully.So they fold Lio between themselves, cupping their hands over the flame so it burns a little longer.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Gueira/Meis
Comments: 35
Kudos: 89





	worth a moment's tenderness

**Author's Note:**

> i watched promare yesterday and wrote this, also yesterday, because i couldn't watch the way meis and gueira interacted with lio without wanting to pry them all apart and tie them together. and vic was NO HELP in preventing this because i went "i'm going to write smut" and then ended up with over 2.5k of sfw getting together fic!!! this is her fault

The others don’t hear the screams.

Lio doesn’t blame them for it. He doesn’t resent them. He could never.

But this is the _third_ day he’s spent curled up in bed muffling his cries into a pillow, and it’s getting hard to explain this state of affairs to the Burnish he’s responsible for. Meis and Gueira come by sometimes to knock and ask him if he wants anything, or to simply leave him another bottle of water and some crackers — the only food he can stomach in this state.

The screams are just

so

_loud._

They’re never _not_ loud, is the thing. It’s just that some days his tolerance is better. It hasn’t been lately, between the constant raids and the stress of finding a six new safe spaces to replace the ones lost, counting bodies and casualties and between it all the fucking _screaming,_ clouding his mind and making it hard to be the leader he knows he must be.

The thoughts he manages to have between the noise aren’t much better than the screaming itself. He thinks about wrapping his hands around his own throat and strangling the screams out of himself. He lights his hands on fire and sticks them under his shirt, pressing them against his stomach because the fire and crackle is soothing and quiets the voices at least a little but it’s not a lasting relief — there’s too much fire inside him for that. Too much _hunger_. The voices want him to burn _everything_.

He falls into an uneasy half-sleep and has fever dreams of spreading the fire inside him to every Burnish in the world, lighting them up with the force inside him. Maybe _then_ they’d hear what he can hear.

Maybe then they’d _understand_.

He presses his hands into his stomach a little harder, until the pressure starts to hurt.

Sometimes he wishes he could _burn._ Burn like things do, like _humans_ do. Burn and burn and burn it all out of it himself, the screaming and the responsibility and the memories, all of the weight he can’t find a place to put down. Burn and burn until he’s light enough to float away, ash in the wind.

And then he hates himself for it. He knows what he has to do. He has a purpose. He can’t rest until every Burnish in the world is safe and if this is what power means then so be it — at least he’s strong enough to bear this weight. Not everyone is.

He should count himself lucky.

He digs his fingers in just a little harder.

The screams grow louder.

—/—

Another day of it and he gets tired of living in twilight and drags himself out of the bunk. He drags his finger down over his eyes and stumbles to the small attached bathroom to wash his face. His eyes are red in the mirror and his hair is such a mess it makes him cringe to look at. But there’s no help for it. He drags wet fingers through his hair and grips until it hurts and ignores the way the screaming is even louder than before.

When he steps out into the apartment he shares with Meis and Gueira, Gueira is sprawled on the floor at Meis’s feet. There’s a half-full box of pizza. Lio looks at it and feels a roiling wave of sickness.

Meis drags a cushion into his lap when he notices Lio, but it’s a second too late for that. Lio rolls his eyes and stomps into the kitchen for more crackers.

“Headache better now?” Gueira calls from behind him. His voice grates against Lio’s raw nerves and he jerks badly, knocking himself into the table and almost tripping over a chair. He manages to right himself by the time Gueira and Meis get there —

Just in time to see him burst into tears.

It’s pathetic that _this_ is the thing that tips him over the edge, but the ice of humiliation isn’t enough to make him stop crying. He’s not even sure _what_ he shouts at them to get them to leave but it works, so he’s standing alone in the kitchen with his throbbing hip and a head that feels heavier than the entire planet. He leans over the table and sobs into his elbows for as long as the self-pity can carry him, and then rifles through the fridge for raw milk.

It takes two glasses of cold milk before he starts to somewhat resemble a person on the inside.

He dries his eyes and goes back out. Gueira and Meis are both on the couch, but they both move down when he stands there awkwardly for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out where to sit.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he grits out, sitting down gingerly on the sofa.

“It’s okay,” Meis says softly. “That bad, Boss?”

 _Boss._ He’s sure, suddenly, that he doesn’t deserve that. When has he ever earned it? He wants to deny it, but the words catch in his throat. He swallows around them and manages to say, “Just not used to it yet, that’s all.”

That’s a lie. It’s a _rank_ lie. It’s always been this bad and it never gets better and some days he thinks he’s choking under the weight of everything he has to do before he can stop to breathe or rest and — and he’s _weak,_ too weak to save them — and then he thinks _panic attack._ Every breath snags on a million miles of steel wool. He lets out a half-hysterical sound and tries to remember why he thought coming out of the bedroom was a good idea. Clearly it’s _not_ and never has been and he’s going to die right here, fuck the Burnish and fuck his lungs for not working because he can’t breathe and he can’t _think._

And then there are warm arms around him, and a voice he can recognize as Meis talking to him through the fog. “Breathe,” he’s saying.

And a hand on his leg, hot and comforting. There’s a fire under that hand. He could pull out the fire but he reaches into it instead, reaches into all the fire that hems him in and thinks _safe,_ one breath in and one out, _there’s fire around me,_ one breath out and another in, _I’m safe._

He’s safe.

The screaming stops.

When he comes to again his face is pressed against Meis’s collarbone. Still panting, but breathing. Gueira looks up at him, worried but patient.

Does he deserve this? He’s so tired of asking himself that.

“You’re with us, Boss,” Meis says quietly.

Lio doesn’t know what to say to that, so he presses his forehead harder against Meis, who smells like cheap cigarettes and fire. It’s comforting. He makes a small sound, half-whine, tries to remember the last time he was close to anyone else like this and fails. He's always been so _alone,_ falling apart with no one to see it and taping himself back together later.

“Shit,” Gueira says. He moves and Lio looks up, alarmed, but he’s only sitting down next to Lio. 

“What —”

“We didn’t figure it out,” Gueira continues apologetically.

Meis rubs his back. Lio still doesn’t really understand, and some of it must show on his face. Gueira shakes his head, tugging Lio’s feet up into his lap. Meis shifts to his other side, pulling him down by the shoulders.

“ _What_ ,” Lio repeats, mortifyingly aware that he isn’t wearing anything other than short shorts and a hoodie. They're both older than him and more experienced and — 

They’re touching him, somehow soothing and careful at once. He leans against it without meaning to, tilting his head into the hand Meis is scratching through his hair, stretching his legs in Gueira’s light grip. Shudders unintentionally as their warmth sweeps through him. Not fire warmth — _human_ warmth. Not just alive but freely given and all the more precious for it. His chest aches with their gentleness.

“It’s been a hard few weeks,” Meis says. “It’s okay to relax.”

Lio shifts uncomfortably. “But there’s no _time_.”

“Yes there is,” Gueira replies, peaceable but still firm underneath it.

And then Meis scratches at that one point on his head and his pleasure must show on his face because they both smile a little and Meis scratches harder and Gueira is stroking his legs with clever hot fingers and Lio doesn’t want to _think_ anymore. He’s too tired to keep himself together as he should and here they are, offering him the chance to put it down for a while. 

He can’t not take it. But he can’t relax either, every muscle wound so tight it hurts to thinks about why.

—/— 

It’s not until they’re already on the top of the reconstructed tower that Meis realizes Lio is probably too young to drink. Which is disappointing; Lio had been hoping that they wouldn’t think about it until it was much too late.

Gueira laughs when Meis brings it up. “He’s killed people, he’s allowed a few shots of vodka.”

“This is whiskey,” Meis says doubtfully. 

Lio widens his eyes pleadingly. He’s still not sure precisely where he fits into the unofficial hierarchy of the Burnish. Gueria and Meis are near the top. It’s uneasy to not know where he stands. But he lost all sense of surety when he first saw pink sparks between his fingers. It’s a little pathetic to wish for it _now._

But Meis sighs and gives him a look that’s a little too perceptive for comfort and doesn’t raise the question again and Lio is quietly relieved.

Gueria and Meis drink straight from the bottle. They sit cross legged on the ground in a rough circle with the bottles between them, and Meis and Gueria take a swig each before passing it to him. It’s a challenge of sorts, Lio thinks, the lack of glass combined with the fact that they probably know Lio has never drunk before. Rich kid like him. Sheltered. He swallows unobtrusively as he brings the bottle to his lips and takes a gulp.

It burns going down. It burns differently than his own fire does, and differently from their touch. A simmering golden heat, so unlike the sharp spiky flames that are natural to him. His eyes water and he coughs.

Neither of them say a word. Somehow that feels worse than if they’d laughed.

He wipes at his eyes and hands the bottle back to Meis. “Do you know how to suppress it?” he asks suddenly, pausing just before his sip.

“Suppress what?” Lio asks, thrown.

“The Burnish fire,” Gueira supplies. “You can’t get drunk as long as it’s going through you, but if you push it down for a while you can feel it.”

“Huh,” Lio says, staring at his hands. He never connected the dots between the healing factor and how he’d never found himself able to take a painkiller, but it made sense. “How do you...do that? Push it down?”

Meis puts the bottle on the ground with a rough _chink_. “Look at me,” he commands.

Lio complies.

Meis kisses him.

For a moment shock keeps him still. Meis’s lips are soft and his hair sways forward, tickling Lio’s face. The kiss turns open-mouthed quickly, unintentionally — it’s hard to keep that from happening, Lio remembers distantly — and intense, almost like Meis is pulling something out of him.

The fire, Lio realizes. He’s pulling out the fire. Reducing the heat in Lio’s core just enough that he can do something else.

“Fuck,” Meis gasps, pulling away. He’s coughing and his mouth is smoking and Lio feels strangely numb and cold in the silver air above the city, frozen in shock. Cold is strange, a thing that doesn’t make sense. This body wasn’t made to feel cold. “That’s so _much_ — how do you take it?”

“What?” Lio asks, but Meis shakes his head. Pushes the bottle into his hand.

This time the burn in his throat lasts longer. Makes him lightheaded, a fire that sweetens the edge off the cold. Another couple of sips and the lines of the world are fuzzy. He giggles and takes another sip.

“That’s enough,” Gueira says, taking the bottle from him. Meis still looks shell-shocked.

Lio pokes his shoulder gently. It’s still half-wonder to reach out and touch another person, just like that. “You okay?”

“He took a lot in,” Gueira says apologetically. 

Meis smiles weakly. “I’m okay.” He shakes his head, grabbing the bottle from Gueira to take a sip. “There’s a lot of fire in you, Lio.”

Lio flushes. “I guess.”

“Is that why you have headaches?” Meis goes on. His voice is soft and rough and Lio suddenly can’t _not_ think about the fact that they just _kissed._ Not kissing, really, if it’s something the Burnish just _do_ every time they want to drink, but — _god._ The first time anyone’s ever touched Lio willingly, instead of recoiling from him as though he’s a broken thing.

After all this time, Lio’s almost used to it. And now it’s strange when it _doesn’t_ happen. He feels like he’s missing a step somewhere, the lost piece that will mean he’s earned this.

Instead he shrugs. “I — hear voices?” The way his voice goes up at the end, as though he isn’t sure. What the fuck. He marshalls his resources and says, “Just a lot of screaming. It wants me to burn everything.”

“All the time?” Meis asks. 

Gueira is watching them, toying with the bottle. Lio feels keenly aware of his gaze as he says, “Yeah, all the time.”

“Even now?” Gueira rumbles. “Here?”

Lio shakes his head. “Not in a few days,” his voice cracks. _Not since you touched me._

They don’t press further.

It’s long after the moon has risen when they head down again. Two empty bottles out of three finished, one of them entirely by Meis, who is still the most sober of all of them. Gueira drapes himself over Lio’s back with a growly laugh as Meis fiddles with the keys, and Lio lights a spark to help before thinking it’s a bad idea and putting it out again. The light dances under his hands.

Hands that can hold and touch other people, now. What a strange thing to think, that he might be able to have that — earned or not. 

They've welcomed his touch. Even the most tentative brushes of his fingers, his clumsy attempts to reach out, the fire he set over Gueira's bruise two nights back to heal him.

The ridiculous ache occupying his body doesn’t fade as he steps into the bedroom they’ve given him. It was theirs, but their mattresses have been shifted into the hall and mostly live rolled up so he can have some privacy.

He doesn’t _want_ privacy today. He doesn’t want to lose this warmth, the kind that’s awkward and soft-skinned and silly. He’s not cold but he's breathing through thick desire and is drunk still, enough that it seems like a good idea to pull them into the room he uses. “Lio,” they say together, but they’re not fighting him, and they don’t say anything after that.

“Just sleeping,” he promises anyway. The desperation in his own voice is humiliating but he tries to look them in the eye anyway.

Gueira snorts. Meis gives him a kind but astute look. “We wouldn’t go further with you without talking it over, anyway.” The _we_ clearly excludes him.

Lio flushes. The implication that they’d talk about _him_ makes his stomach clench.

They tumble into bed together, both of them somehow on either side of him. Their bodies are warm and they don’t seem to care about the state of the bed, and Gueira pulls the sheets over all of them while Meis traces Lio’s arm lightly. “Sleep well, Boss,” he says, when Gueira is tucked in as well.

“You too,” Lio mumbles sleepily.

Gueira’s hand settles on his waist. Lio shudders and finally, finally unwinds.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE comment i need to know there are other mad burnish ot3 lovers out there. im pareidole on twt come stare at the idiot whining about a noncanon rarepair ot3


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